Don't take my answer as a wind up but most of us here have lived long enough to see a complete iteration of that cyclical argument.
No on never attack with <attack of you choice> is utter rubbish. You have been sold that same old cock flavoured lolly pop, that the oldest of us have been sold 20 years ago.
The only difference between you and me is that you have a more modern wrapper than the one I bought

Since the early 80 I have heard buckets loads of people telling me what a real fight is.
That bloody 1v1versus the street for hand to hand is just "the real way to fight with a knife" re-cooked and served with a different sauce.
For some the only way was to prison shank you for the other the only way to use a knife was to use it like a one handed sword.
It is glaringly obvious that you do not have any influence on what the geezer is going to do and hence that you should be able to deal with both.

Now replace prison shank you with rush or ambush and use it like a sword by fighting like any combat sport. You will find that it is equally daft to expect your opponent to square up with you or to ambush you in dark alley with two of his mates, all on meths with an AK47 in one hand and a machete in the other.

10-15 years ago, the fact that 1v1 martial artist where unable to deal with "real life situation" created the SD craze.
The "new approach" that we see now is that we need to compete to make sure we can use our skill when it matters is directly responsible for all the sport version of martial arts, Modern fencing included.

You can spin it anyway you want 1v1 is designed for the combination of the best athlete and technique to prevail. So the starting situation is equal for each fighter, can not be manipulated, and both fighter are aware of each other and that they will fight.
Yes you will have fighter that will try to rush you and or pressure fight you but equally you have strategy and tactic you can use against then.
All that because you are aware of your opponent and his intentions, as well the distance and the position you fight from is designed to give you that latitude.
In other words, you do not have any other option but establish dominant position after the actual fight started.
Amazingly, combat sports are the best practice for that type of situation

On the other hand you have the warrior class of old or modern thug approach which is advocated that you really need to manipulate the environment to achieve dominant position before you start fighting.
That usually includes weapons, surprise, deception and numbers.

There is no denying that some aikido schools are more turned toward the spiritual development and that the training methods of aikido are not really up to date, but some other are quite adapted to that deal with the later type of attacker.

Phil